It's Not About My Wife
by EHfan
Summary: In the episode Miracle Rachel accuses Hood of not thinking clearly about the case due to his grief.  This missing scene contains Jacob's reflections on both her words and the case in general.


A/N: This missing scene plays off the accusation Rachel makes in the episode "Miracle" and Jacob's possible reaction to not only her words, but the case in general.

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Jacob Hood wasn't a religious man. But as he stared out of the window of the SUV he prayed that it wasn't his insistence on investigating the miracle spring that caused the murders of Travis Dobbs and Veronica Reeves. The thought that two people had died because of a whim on his part made him feel sick. He tried, unsuccessfully, to convince himself Dobbs was the kind of man to come to a bad end regardless. That Dobbs had been a two-bit criminal and the worst kind of con man; it was only a matter of time before his actions caught up with him.

Veronica was another matter entirely. She had been a dedicated doctor, working hard to make a difference in the lives of her patients. His words came back to haunt him. _'__Rachel, __I __have __a __horrible __feeling __that __Veronica __died __because __she __gave __a __damn.__'_ She had agreed and now they were on their way to Veronica's house to determine if his interference had caused a good woman to be brutally murdered.

Rachel glanced at over at her passenger and saw that Hood was staring out the window, brooding. She grimaced as she recalled his shocked look when she had thrown his wife's death in his face. _'__Shit, __I __guess __I __should __apologize __to __him __or __something.__' _Turing her attention back to the winding mountain road, her mouth tightened a little at the thought.

It annoyed her that she felt that she had to apologize for confronting him about his attitude toward this case. That she had to dance around the fact that maybe, just _maybe_, his thinking was clouded by the fact they were dealing with the disease that had cost his wife her life. That even though it was nearly three years since his wife had died he still hadn't come to terms with his grief. She had thought, when she overheard him on the phone with Dr. Yang, he was finally ready to move on with his life. Apparently that wasn't the case, since then he had been reluctant to plan another trip to Palo Alto.

She took a deep breath. _'__No, __I __refuse __to __apologize __for __pointing __out __to __him __that __he__'__s __letting __his __emotions __get __in __the __way __of __the __job.__'_ It was bad enough she had apologized _for_ him to Dr. Reeves; she wasn't going to apologize _to_ him because he couldn't accept the fact that his wife had died while Nicky somehow, miracle or not, had lived.

Jacob was oblivious to Rachel's annoyance. His thoughts were in a jumble and he was finding it difficult to concentrate. _'__What __in __the __hell __is __going __on __here? __How __did __things __start __to __fall __apart __so __fast?__'_ He expected, when he decided to drag Rachel to Montana, it would be a quick investigation. Expose the quacks and prove that the water was nothing out of the ordinary. What he was having a hard time dealing with was the fact that they were in Montana faced with two dead bodies and a rapidly deteriorating situation because he had been lonely.

Normally news about the latest cancer scam would have elicited nothing more than a disgusted head shake. Jacob hated the way these con men victimized people desperate for a cure; sick people who would try anything if it offered them some hope. He had told Rachel they had to investigate because sick people would die if they walked away from their medical treatment to drink from the spring. In reality the type of people who would go looking for a miracle would merely move on to the next snake-oil salesman once the spring was shut down. There were thousands of "miracle cures" for cancer floating around the internet. He could spend all of his time debunking these frauds and still not make a dent in the problem.

This time the news came during Rachel's free weekend and he had been bored. The agents who were assigned to him on these weekends resented the detail. They would groan and roll their eyes when they discovered that their duties consisted of taking him grocery shopping and running other errands. More often than not he would spend the time holed up in his apartment to avoid the unpleasantness of dealing with them. He tried to tell himself that under those circumstances it was natural that he would miss her. It had nothing to do with his growing attraction to her.

He had seen this latest scam as the perfect opportunity to make contact with her. It wasn't a real case; no one had called the FBI looking for his assistance. It was the kind of thing that he _could_ be called in on though; Frank couldn't bitch too much. And it was the sort of bizarre problem that might catch Rachel's interest. He was sure he could convince her to cut her weekend short. He would wake her bright and early in the morning before she had a chance to get started on her plans for the day.

_'And __didn__'__t __that __go __well.__' _Jacob closed his eyes, wincing as he recalled the scene in Rachel's apartment. He had expected the grumpiness. After all, he _was_ waking her up at 6:00 a.m. on her day off. He hadn't expected the pleasure he would feel at seeing her. He couldn't help smiling as she read through the print-outs he had brought along. She had looked so damn cute with her messy hair, wearing an over-sized man's shirt as a nightgown. He definitely hadn't expected that she would have … company. _'__What __an __idiot __I __am,__'_ he thought bitterly. _'__I__'__m __like __a __little __kid __who __doesn__'__t __believe __his __teacher __has __a __life __outside __of __school. __I __should __have __realized __she __has __a __lover.__'_

He had felt an unfamiliar twist in his gut as he realized what it meant that Rachel was standing in front of him wearing nothing but some guy's shirt. She didn't wear shirts like that as nightgowns. She had been in bed, naked, with the shirt's owner. It must have been the first thing she grabbed on the way to answer the door. The look on her face when her lover had started the shower showed that he had succeeded not only in embarrassing himself but her as well.

He was grateful that she had the professionalism to rise above the circumstances. To cut short his stuttering attempts to get the hell out of there and give him the chance to convince her that yes, this was a legitimate case. And on some level that he refused to acknowledge, he had been pleased that she had left that guy to come to Montana with him.

Once they arrived it quickly became clear that nothing was as he assumed. To begin with there had been a reputable physician at the center of the controversy. She had already begun an investigation into the spring and her tests were impeccable. Frank _had_ called, pissed over what he termed a wild goose chase. Jacob had hung up on him before he could order them back to DC. Now there were two dead bodies and a previously healthy person dying from radiation poisoning after drinking the spring water. Their best lead hadn't panned out and he still couldn't figure out what was going on. And to top it all off, Rachel was accusing him of being biased because of Maggie, because of the way she had died.

'_Don__'__t __make __this __about __your __wife, __Hood.__'_ Her words had shocked him. It wasn't because of Maggie that he had rejected the idea of a miracle occurring. He simply rejected the idea that miracles could occur, ever. They just weren't rationale. He hadn't realized Rachel believed he was still grief-stricken over Maggie's death. That he resented this child being spared while she had died. He could understand her reasoning. He remembered saying in her presence that not a day had gone by since Maggie's death that he didn't wish she was still alive. What she didn't know was that his regret at Maggie's death had nothing to do with grief.

The truth was he had begun grieving for Maggie the day they received the diagnosis. Her tumor has been in an advanced state, her prognosis was for months not years. Her doctor had recommended palliative care only as the outcome was inevitable. Maggie, however had other ideas; she had no intention of going gently into that good-night. She made it clear that she wanted to pursue an aggressive course of chemotherapy. By exploitng both of their contacts she had access to every new treatment available. She even talked her way into the scorpion venom trial despite the fact that her tumor was far more advanced than any of the others in the trial. Jacob had stood by her side, supporting her in her fight, even though he knew it was doomed to failure. During the six months they had before she died Jacob had come to terms with his grief. His guilt was another matter entirely.

This case wasn't about his wife. It had started off being about Rachel. About the fact that he was slowly coming to the realization that she was important to him, that he found her attractive, that he didn't feel alone when she was with him. But now it was obvious that something serious, something that warranted an investigation by the Special Science Advisor, was going on.

The ringing of his cell phone intruded into his thoughts. "Hello?"

Matthew's voice came through, high and excited. "Jacob, I've never seen anything like it. Quasimodo, his tumor, it's gone. It's disappeared. Jacob, you gotta find out what did this. It's incredible."


End file.
